A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries.
The Mosin–Nagant is a five-shot, bolt-action, internal magazine–fed military rifle. Known officially as the 3-line rifle M1891 and informally in Russia and the former Soviet Union as Mosin's rifle, it is primarily found chambered for its original 7.62×54mmR cartridge.
A grenade launcher is a weapon that fires a specially designed, large-caliber projectile, often with an explosive, smoke, or gas warhead. Today, the term generally refers to a class of dedicated firearms firing unitary grenade cartridges. The most common type are man-portable, shoulder-fired weapons issued to individuals, although larger crew-served launchers are issued at higher levels of organization by military forces.
Carcano is the frequently used name for a series of Italian bolt-action, internal box magazine fed, repeating military rifles and carbines. Introduced in 1891, the rifle was chambered for the rimless 6.5×52mm Carcano round. It was developed by the chief technician Salvatore Carcano at the Turin Army Arsenal in 1890, and was originally called the Modello (model) 91 or simply M91. Successively replacing the previous Vetterli-Vitali rifles and carbines in 10.35×47mmR, it was produced from 1891 to 1945. The M91 was used in both rifle (fucile) and shorter-barreled carbine (moschetto) form by most Italian troops during World War I and by Italian and some German forces during World War II. The rifle was also used during the Winter War by Finland, and again by regular and irregular forces in Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria during various postwar conflicts in those countries.
An anti-tank rifle is an anti-materiel rifle designed to penetrate the armor of armored fighting vehicles, most commonly tanks, armored personnel carriers, and infantry fighting vehicles. The term is usually used for weapons that can be carried and used by one person, but is sometimes used for larger weapons. The usefulness of rifles for this purpose ran from the introduction of tanks in World War I until the Korean War. While medium and heavy tank armor became too thick to be penetrated by rigid projectiles from rifles that could be carried by a single soldier, anti-tank rifles continued to be used against other "soft" targets, though recoilless rifles and rocket-propelled grenades such as the bazooka were also introduced for infantry close-layer defense against tanks.
A breechloader is a firearm in which the user loads the ammunition from the breech end of the barrel, as opposed to a muzzleloader, in which the user loads the ammunition from the (muzzle) end of the barrel.
A rifle grenade is a grenade that uses a rifle-based launcher to permit a longer effective range than would be possible if the grenade were thrown by hand.
The .30-06 Springfield cartridge, 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use until the late 1970s. In the cartridge's name, ".30" refers to the nominal caliber of the bullet in inches; "06" refers to the year the cartridge was adopted, 1906. It replaced the .30-03 Springfield, 6mm Lee Navy, and .30-40 Krag cartridges. The .30-06 remained the U.S. Army's primary rifle and machine gun cartridge for nearly 50 years before being replaced by the 7.62×51mm NATO and 5.56×45mm NATO, both of which remain in current U.S. and NATO service. The cartridge remains a very popular sporting round, with ammunition produced by all major manufacturers.
The Special Purpose Individual Weapon (SPIW) was a long-running United States Army program to develop, in part, a flechette-firing "rifle", though other concepts were also involved. The concepts continued to be tested under the Future Rifle Program and again in the 1980s under the Advanced Combat Rifle program, but neither program resulted in a system useful enough to warrant replacing the M16.
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gas created by the ignition of the propellant charge.
The Brixia Model 35 was an Italian small-sized, rapid-firing light mortar of World War II. The Brixia Modello 35 provided light supporting fire to the infantry companies. It was issued at battalion level, with each battalion containing nine mortars parceled out to each infantry company. It had a reasonable rate of fire but lacked power due to the small round. It was widely used and saw action on every major Italian front.
Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the cartridge being fired is used to power a mechanism to dispose of the spent case and insert a new cartridge into the chamber. Energy from the gas is harnessed through either a port in the barrel or a trap at the muzzle. This high-pressure gas impinges on a surface such as a piston head to provide motion for unlocking of the action, extraction of the spent case, ejection, cocking of the hammer or striker, chambering of a fresh cartridge, and locking of the action.
The Springfield Model 1873 was the first standard-issue breech-loading rifle adopted by the United States Army. The rifle, in both full-length and carbine versions, was widely used in subsequent battles against Native Americans.
The Pedersen Rifle, officially known in final form as the T1E3 rifle, was a United States semi-automatic rifle designed by John Pedersen that was made in small numbers for testing by the United States Army during the 1920s as part of a program to standardize and adopt a replacement for the M1903 Springfield.
The Heckler & KochG41 is a German 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle introduced in 1981 and produced in limited quantities by Heckler & Koch. It was designed to replace the 7.62×51mm NATO chambered Heckler & Koch G3 and the G3 based .223 Remington/5.56×45mm and later 5.56×45mm NATO chambered Heckler & Koch HK33 service rifles providing a more modern weapon compatible with then recently introduced NATO standards. It can use both the then new STANAG 4172 compliant 5.56×45mm NATO SS109, SS110, and SS111 ammunition and older .223 Remington/5.56×45mm M193 ammunition and was the last Heckler & Koch service rifle designed around the roller-delayed blowback mechanism.
The evolution of German military rifles is a history of common and diverse paths followed by the separate German states, until the mid-19th century when Prussia emerged as the dominant state within Germany and the nation was unified. This article discusses rifled shoulder arms developed in or for the military of the states that later became Germany; it excludes firearms of the Austrian Empire, except where they were used substantially by German troops.
The following are terms related to firearms and ammunition topics.
A 22 mm rifle grenade is inserted over the firing mechanism on the front of rifles that are equipped with the appropriate spigot-type launcher, either in the form of an integral flash suppressor or a detachable adapter. As with most rifle grenades, it is propelled by a blank cartridge inserted into the chamber of the rifle. A 22 mm (0.87 in) grenade can range from a powerful anti-tank round to a simple finned tube with a fragmentation hand grenade attached to the end. The "22 mm" refers to the diameter of the base tube which fits over the spigot of the launcher, not the diameter of the warhead section, which is much wider.
The M7 grenade launcher, formally rifle grenade launcher, M7, was a 22 mm rifle grenade launcher attachment for the M1 Garand rifle that saw widespread use throughout World War II and the Korean War. The M7 was a tube-shaped device, with one end slotting over the muzzle of the rifle and attaching to the bayonet mount, and the other end holding the grenade in place. Blank cartridges were loaded into the rifle prior to firing. When fired, the expanding gases generated by the cartridges propelled the grenade forward with considerable force. The M7 could fire grenades up to 200 metres, compared with the maximum of 30 metres achieved by a hand-thrown grenade.
